Dovetail Template

I’m such a novice woodworker that I take pride even in jigs. So here for your viewing pleasure is a little dovetail template that I made. The design came straight from the fine folks at Homestead Heritage, although I modified it a bit. On one side is a square and a 1:7 angle, and on the other are the angles for 1:6 (for softwoods) and 1:8 (for hardwoods). The template is made from Malaysian kempas wood, and was finished with three coats of boiled linseed oil. First time using that, smells nice.

I’ll be using this template to make my wife a dovetailed box (see my blog), so hopefully before too long I’ll have a “real” project to post here!

EDIT 2/10: Now that I’ve actually used the template, I have this to say about it: it will only work if you’re a “pins first” dovetail chopper. If you do tails first, the template (as you might guess if you think it through) will only allow you to layout the one side of the tail. To do the other side, you’d need to whip out your bevel gauge. At least you already have the angles to align the gauge up against, but still, it’s an extra step. I might make another that has both directions of one ratio only.

If you do pins first, should be no trouble – just mark one edge from one side of the board, and the other edge from the other side. Make sense?

EDIT 2/13: No it doesn’t make sense! No matter which side of the end you place the template, the angle is the same. So this template really is kind of useless except for the square. But it’s given me good experience which will help when I build my next one!

Hi Eric, I also went to that class and made the same template. Works great and I really enjoyed the class. Let me know if you are ever going back, its in my neck of the woods and I’ve been considering taking the three day class.